Content

This unit introduces students to the history of life on earth, including its development and survival into the future, through our knowledge of the fossil record. Subject matter within the unit will include the origin of life on earth and its earliest development from 4.0 to 3.5 billion years ago, an introduction to the science of palaeobiology, dating the fossil record, the age of bacteria, the rise of animals and the age of invertebrates, the rise of fishes and the invasion of the land by plants and animals, the rise of tetrapods and the ages of dinosaurs and mammals, the age of Homo, evolving biodiversity and the science of extinctions.